In the manufacture of semiconductor devices, an electrostatic chuck (ESC) is often utilized to hold a workpiece, such as a silicon wafer, during processing thereof. In some system architectures, a robot is configured to transfer the workpiece to and from the electrostatic chuck in order to transfer the workpiece between various processing apparatuses.
Typically, the workpiece is attracted to a surface of the electrostatic chuck by an electrostatic attraction force developed between the workpiece and a dielectric layer of the ESC via an application of voltage applied to one or more electrodes residing below the dielectric layer.
Conventional electrostatic chucks, however, often have difficulty in properly attracting and clamping a workpiece to the surface of the electrostatic chuck when the workpiece has previously been warped due to previous processing thereof.